It may be misleading, but Elizabef is nothing on the size of East Freo Oval. The biggest difference (even before the recent upgrades) for me is the lack of corporate/media facilities at SANFL grounds. Norwood seemed to be quite good, but the rest of them seemed fairly average and nowhere near as large and complete as WAFL grounds.

We now have electronic scoreboards and media facilities being upgraded, but at Prospect ABC just parked up the back of the stand, sat right in front of them. Was surreal.

Mate Prospect is a terrible place to watch footy. the seating in the Grandstand is only for North Members, the 'siren'is more like a basketball buzzer, if you sits/stand in the outer wing terraces, you cant see the scoreboard for the trees.There didn't seem to be many toilets on offer either. Not my favourite SANFL ground to visit.

It does however have pretty painted stobie poles outside.

Speaking of Prospect...

Main grandstand


Grandstand and future fitness venue


South end


North end

Ta.

Is the fitness venue for North Adelaide or will it be a public gym?

Just some photo's I've taken at the 3 West Adelaide games I've managed to get to in 2011. The first set are of the Westies vs Williamstown Foxtel Cup Quarter Final @ AAMI Stadium on 4 June (as you can see it was very hard finding a decent seat as there weren't many left by the time I arrived...just as the first bounce was happening). The second couple were taken on 20 August @ Hikinbothem Oval as Westies snapped a 7 game losing streak against South Adelaide and the last few are of Westies vs Glenelg @ City Mazda Stadium last night (26 August). Sadly the only one of the 3 that Westies won was against South Adelaide.

West Adelaide vs Williamstown @ AAMI Stadium


South Adelaide vs West Adelaide @ Hikinbothem Oval


West Adelaide vs Glenelg @ City Mazda Stadium

Just thought I'd include these, some aerials of the SANFL grounds (taken from nearmap.com)

AAMI Stadium - Neutral ground (4x AFL curtain raisers), Foxtel Cup, SANFL Finals (165 x 135)


Adelaide Oval - Neutral night game venue, ANZAC Day GF replay, Foxtel Cup (160 x 125 currently. Widening to approx 130-135m after both boundry lines have been moved following ground rebuild)


Alan Hickinbotham Oval (Noarlunga Oval) - South Adelaide Panthers (170 x 140 - Widest SANFL ground)


Alberton Oval - Port Adelaide Magpies (170 x 130)


City Mazda Stadium (Richmond Oval) - West Adelaide Bloods (170 x 125)


Commander Centre Oval (Unley Oval) - Sturt Double Blues (156 x 115 - How they ever fitted in a (confirmed) 22,015 for a game against Port in 1968 I'll never know because the ground really hasn't changed)


Coopers Stadium (Norwood Oval) - Norwood Redlegs (165 x 110 - Along with Woodville Oval the narrowest SANFL ground. Note the 6 old light towers are gone, replaced by 4 modern ones in 2010)


Gliderol Stadium @ Glenelg (Glenelg Oval) - Glenelg Tigers (160 x 115)


Playford Alive Oval (Elizabeth Oval) - Central District Bulldogs (180 x 130 - Longest goal to goal SANFL ground)


Prospect Oval - North Adelaide Roosters (170 x 120)


Unleash Solar Oval (Woodville Oval) - Woodville-West Torrens Eagles (175 x 110 - Longest fence to fence SANFL ground at 200m. Elizabeth Oval is only 190m fence to fence) and equal narrowest with Norwood Oval


And here is one that while not currently in use although The Eagles are apparently in the process of upgrading the lights in a bid to play their own night home games.
Thebarton Oval - Woodville-West Torrens Eagles (160 x 130 - Home ground of the West Torrens Eagles 1922-89. Hosted most of the SANFL Coca-Cola/Escort Cup Grand Finals from the '70s until '84 when Footy Park got its lights)

Who was the pissed bastard who dug out Commander oval? Hard to get used to as an away team.

Why do you think Sturt have such a great record there? Unley Oval is a bit small (sorry, officially I'll name them by their sponsored name but being an Adelaide boy they'll always be their suburb names to me) but its dictated by its surroundings. From all accounts the bowls club behind the southern goals (left of the above picture) was there before the football club came along so it is what it is. The capacity these days is listed as 15,000 but they'd be lucky to fit in 8,000 tops. I was there for a Sturt v West game in '98 and there were almost 6,000 there that day and the place was packed. I know they've opened up some of the area now so it can hold more people but 8 is the best I think they could manage. Its also why Sturt have a great record at Adelaide Oval, especially in Grand Finals. AO's dimensions before the rebuild began were only 160 x 120 and the ground had an odd shape, just like Unley.

Watched the Centrals v Norwood game on Saturday on ABC and they posted a crowd of 4,892 which is good considering Elizabeth Oval is way out north and not a lot of away fans other than North Adelaide's go there on mass. Wasn't a bad round for the SANFL. The Glenelg v Port match attracted 4,160 to The Bay, 2,333 went to Prospect for North v South and 2,279 were at Woodville for the WWT v Westies match.

Went to see West Adelaide play Glenelg for the Bays first game under lights at Glenelg Oval in Round 2 of 2012 (31 March). A good crowd of 6,047 saw Glenelg beat Wests who were just too damn wasteful and made so many skill errors it was almost embarassing.

Other than Westies losing the only complaint I had was that the scoreboard was so dark you couldn't read it (see 5th photo). It was bad enough that the ground announcer had to give score updates for those who couldn't see the board.....which was just about everyone not within about 50m of it. You can also see from the second and last photos just how little spectator room there is on the outer wing at Glenelg Oval.

Just of SANFL note, eight days earlier to open the 2012 season Thebarton Oval saw not only its first SANFL match since 1989 but its first night game since the 1983 Escort Cup Grand Final when the reigning premiers Woodville-West Torrens lost to Port Adelaide by 55 points in front of 4,566 fans in the Eagles first ever home game at the ground, and indeed their first home night game as Woodville Oval doesn't have lights and they didn't play a home night game at Footy Park in 1991. Sorry but no photo's of that one.

The photo's were taken with my phone so sorry they aren't the greatest quality.

I can't get over how narrow most of those ovals are

Cool pics.

Big round ovals are a recent AFL invention. Not entirely a bad thing - Imagine an AFL paced game at Norwood Oval these days. You wouldn't last one season without a player dying after crashing in to the brick wall boundary on the wing.

Symmetrical fields are also recent. Just the other day I realised while watching an AFL game that it's been 20 years since I heard a commentator call the ball being kicked to the "shallow" pocket.

It's afl benchmarking everything on Docklands......it's the Nineafacation of sporting grounds.

What's the relationship with the cricket clubs that share these venues? Obviously the seasons don't overlap but training would.